warning for drug use! this fic is set in the same 'verse as my other fic, the earth beneath! but you don't need to read that fic in order to understand this one, although i encourage it! but i hope you enjoy this one.
I said my " goodbyes, " didn't I?
Seemed so ideal to the outside
Burning and tying on
I should have said it before I …
Before I'd gone,
Before I'd gone,
That's the wit of the staircase.
There's this patron here at Whitebeard's, a patron who visits at all hours of the day, erratically, but can always be counted on staying for a while at around three AM on Saturdays. Marco tends to visit then, too, and his curiosity gets the better of him. He always sort of keeps an eye on that weird boy in the corner.
He's not entirely sure why.
Sometimes he looks like he's sleepy, languid, but still on top of the world. That's when he tends to eat something. However, he starves and hardly finishes his coffees when he comes in covered in precipitation and exhaustion, bags beneath his eyes big enough to carry fifty dollars worth of groceries.
Sometimes still, but rarely, there's books involved. He looks about college-aged. Leather jackets and v-necks and necklaces and combat boots. He's an interesting looking guy, like he has stories to tell.
Marco figures he might talk to him, one day.
If his workload ever lessens.
Tonight he has a hazy look in his eyes as he passes and nods at Marco, small smile. Something about him … He's at once familiar and strange and untouchable, but distant and accessible all at the same time, some kind of pretty walking paradox.
"Hey." there goes 'one day'; Marco sup nods towards the boy and said boy stops where he stands. "Are you a student around here?"
"'Bout time you talked to me, man." He says, and takes a seat opposite Marco without asking, "Yeah. I study film, for some fucking reason. You?"
He seems so relaxed and clouded where he sits, and it finally dawns on Marco.
He's high.
On what, he doesn't know.
Its not offputting, or anything. Marco's had his fair share of drugs of all kinds and alcohol; its sort of hard to get through school without a palmful of adderall once in a while.
He sure comes in high a lot if his clouded-over eyes are any indication of his sobriety, but who knows his dependence level.
"Grad student. Psychology."
"I'm sorry." He laughs, shaking his head, "Must be hard."
"How d'you figure?" His tone comes dry and the other laughs, "I'm Marco. You can join me, if you like."
Ace looks up from his eyes down to the table and shifts, suddenly nervous and alert and awake. Marco cocks his head a little.
"'M Ace. Might need to dip … Sorry. I can join you some other time."
Ace.
He feels something ripple up his spine and stay, coiled tight around his brain, something dark and old and, oh, not again. This is getting tiresome.
"Oh. Uh. Did I say something wrong, Ace?"
"No. I just." He shakes his head again, "Suddenly not doing okay. Brainweird. You're fine, Marco, I promise."
"All right … You take care, then."
"Yeah. Yeah, you too."
Ace leaves the place after buying a coffee from the front, and he's out the door like he's being chased by the devil himself.
Marco doesn't stop worrying about it, about him, until he's fast asleep in his bed later that morning.
Ace crosses Marco's mind in odd spots in his day, and the thoughts are strange. Its weird, on its own, to dedicate even a little thought to someone who can hardly even be considered an acquaintance, but the thoughts are even stranger. He thinks of the dead of winters with him, in that ancient way, he thinks about the sea and the sand and the sky. Blue wings and burning fists, and -
He really needs to get some sleep meds.
It must be the lack of sleep, making him like this.
Still, he finds himself in Whitebeard's yet again, thesis heavy over his head.
The owner, a guy with long brown hair usually tied back, ends up coming over to bring him a couple cookies and a milkshake. His name is Thatch.
He hips his hands, "You look worse for wear, my guy."
"Wow, thanks." The milkshake is chocolate and peanut butter and Marco could kiss this man, "And yeah. This thing is kicking my ass, I can't really focus."
Thatch huffs a little and looks to the side. "I understand that one. Be patient with yourself, all right? What's left of your hair will fall out."
"Fuck you, dude."
The sentence rolls out of his mouth, entirely too familiar for, once again, someone who can barely be counted as an acquaintance.
But the strange thing is, that familiarity feels all right. Thatch laughs and rocks on his heels, some.
"Looks good on you, stud." And he's off again, leaving Marco with laughter on his breath.
Marco manages to get through some more work before Thatch is back again, and he leans with his palms on the table.
"You wanna come share a smoke? Its been so slow besides you." He goes, "My pops said, long time ago, see, like. 'If you got time to lean, you got time to clean' so I did all that, but there's nothing more I can do. Place is already spotless."
Marco blinks at him a little; he has an incredibly easy going nature about him, makes him likeable and approachable. He feels a little sad when he talks to him, though, and he can't place why. Like some forlorn thorns wrapped themselves around his heart, constriction. He always does his best to ignore it.
"Sure."
So they come outside the place, and Thatch lights up a wide.
"So d'you know my Pops, the man who this place was named for?" Thatch asks, points up towards the sign above them.
"Can't say I do."
"He comes in for breakfast sometimes. Early bird special, or whatever. He's such an old man." Thatch laughs. He passes the cigarette to Marco after his second drag; Marco takes it and puffs on it. Normally, he smokes menthols, but full flavors are nice and harsh once in a while.
"He's your dad? Or just someone you call Pops?" he's not sure how that question snuck into his throat and sighed out of it.
"My bio dad was a deadbeat and Whitebeard took me in and … Yeah, he's my dad. Maybe not blood, but I tell everyone that."
"My mom was the one who wasn't around when I was growing up, honestly, but … My dad made it work, and I don't feel like anything's … Missing."
"Yeah, I get you. Whitebeard filled the hole there, but I got real fucked up over my dad leaving. You're lucky, my guy."
Marco passes it back, leans against the wall. Its nice, to talk to someone and take a break from his thesis. Thatch is good enough to talk to, and as they do, those forlorn thorns loosen their grip over his beating heart. They talk, easily, about their pasts, weaving into talks about their presents and their futures, about friends and family.
They talk long past the first cigarette burning, until someone comes up to them, presumably as a customer.
Its Ace, surprisingly.
He has a sleepy sort of smile stretched over his face, and Thatch wordlessly offers him the cigarette, which he takes.
"Hey." he says, nodding to Marco and then regarding Thatch. "Sorry about the yesterday, man."
"Don't worry about it." Marco says, matching his smile. Thatch looks between them, and that same familiarity sneaks into his own voice again.
"What happened yesterday?"
"Oh, uh. We finally said hi to one another and I started feeling really weird, so I bounced." explains Ace. "Its nothing personal, though, just … Happens a lot, I guess, you'll have to get used to it."
Get used to it, he says, which suggests that they're going to talk more, maybe become more than acquaintances. Marco finds that he's open to that. He's really curious about the younger boy.
"Right, right, I'll keep that in mind." Thatch says. Marco nods as well, in acknowledgement and agreement. They finish the cigarette shortly thereafter, and the three head back inside. Once Marco takes his seat, once Ace asks if he can sit with him, once Thatch joins them, they fall into discussion again. Its mostly questions directed towards Ace — the same topics that they covered in their own conversation, alone.
It pulls them through minutes, hours. There's not a single customer that comes in, which is about par the course. Marco finds that its incredibly easy to talk to them both, and this is most welcome; he's been too busy to talk to Jozu or Curiel much, his best friends and roommates, these days, but he does miss them.
He makes a mental note to talk to them both.
Something about this hours-long exchange makes his throat hurt, makes an iron vice appear around it. It comes to be a feeling of saudade in his chest, saudade that swells up so strong that he needs to excuse himself to the bathroom for a couple minutes. He keeps his hands on the rim of the sink, eyes making a circuit from the tap to his reflection.
Breathe, Marco says to himself, and his analytical self so wishes he could get both a handle on and an understanding of this situation. From where do these thorns come from, the iron band, the sadness, the happiness?
He tries not to think about it too deeply; not until he's packed away and heading home. Home isn't terribly far, just about three-quarters of a mile. He tends to walk where he can, but the option of a car is still present.
He sinks down onto the couch and places his books and papers on the coffee table.
Jozu is quite suddenly there, out of his room and hovering at the doorway.
"Marco."
"Jozu."
The bigger man joins him on the couch, keeping a bit of a distance.
"I'd say you're up late, but this is normal for you these days." there's a smirk in Jozu's voice, but its a wry one. He slings his arm over the back of the couch.
"Yeah." Marco says, and the tired comes over him, a wave, "I spent more time talking with a patron and the owner than I did working, but. I don't mind that so much."
"Hm." Jozu says, and he waits a bit, "So long as you're taking a break, if that's what that was, why don't you come see a movie with me and Curiel tomorrow … ? We both miss you."
"Yeah. Yeah, I'd like that a lot." Marco says, and his promise is true, "We can see what's playing tomorrow and be shitty mall rats again."
Like when they were young. Jozu laughs, a bit under his breath.
It evokes memories of a time, years back, when they ran the streets and laughed and talked and got into trouble. A fond time. Marco and Jozu and Curiel and their other friends — Vista, Rakuyo, Kingdew — have all changed a lot over the years.
Their bond has only grown, though.
They're family, really.
Jozu goes to bed soon thereafter, and Marco finds himself laying down on the couch, television off; he listens to the ceiling fan and he soon succumbs to sleep.
He doesn't dream tonight, thank his lucky stars, because quite a few of his nights are spent paralyzed in sleep, dreaming and dreaming. There's a constant theme in his dreams, one that fucks him up bad; its the inability to do anything while his loved ones die. Its the fear and the grief and the knowledge that they're going to die, no matter what he does, and the small, pathetic flickerflame of hope in his chest will just go unheeded.
Tonight's respite from that feels wonderful when he wakes up after only a couple hours.
Nightmares and only a couple hours are just what he's used to; he found out some time in high school that this isn't normal, and he was shocked. You mean most people don't spend their precious few sleeping hours in utter terror … ?
He rises from the couch and rubs at the stubble on his cheeks. That'll need to be taken care of, as well as the taste of sleep in his mouth. After coffee, though, he thinks, and he's moving up to the kitchen to start the machine.
Curiel is up a couple minutes after then, and he washes his hands like he always does first thing. He says the dish soap at the sink does a better job than hand soap. He's sort of a weird guy, sort of a space case, but Marco absolutely loves him to hell and back.
"Good morning." Curiel says, and Marco pours the sugar into his cup.
"Morning. How'd you sleep?"
"All right, I guess, I had to tire myself out with a run around the block, couple times." Curiel tells him, hops up on the counter.
Marco leans against the table and sips. Its actually sort of rare they ask one another questions about sleep. Even though it might not be normal for a lot of people to have night terrors, its actually … quite normal in his inner circle.
"Do you have the day off? I think you do, if memory serves." continues Curiel, and Marco nods.
"Jozu wanted to do something, today, anyway." Marco tells him. "I'd like that, if you're down. Mayb we can get a couple others with us."
"Sounds good to me. We just have to wait for his big ass to lumber outta bed." he snickers, and there's a cough from several yards away.
Jozu's voice comes through to them, stern, "What was that, Curiel?"
"Oh, shit."
Marco starts laughing, watching as Jozu comes up to Curiel with the latter holding his hands up in surrender. They end up wrestling around the kitchen, though the action is run through with mirth, not malice.
Its nice, to see them like this.
The rest of the day seems like its going to be ok, too.
Ace doesn't like confiding much in Teach; they're hardly friends, really, being dealer and client. But he figures it might get him a bit extra. Surely, Teach is a man with a heart?
"I don't fucking know, man, these nightmares have to stop." Ace says, gestures flippantly with a hand, "They've been flaring up."
"Shhh." Teach says, and he's shaking a couple pills out of the bottle. Ace eyes the amount and figures he's going to need more than that, but he doesn't say anything. Teach holds the pills in his hand, tells Ace to open, which he does. Teach is all grins when he places the four pills on his tongue, then sliding that hand down to his shoulder.
"That's a good boy." he says, practically purrs it, then laughs quietly. Zehahaha. Ace feels a weird repulsion whenever he laughs. In fact, he feels that repulsion around him quite a bit. Ace swallows the little pills dry.
"You're too kind, Teach."
"I know. You're my favorite customer, so I won't charge you any for those." he sits back, taking his hand off of Ace. "The rest of these, though, you gotta pay for."
"Do you pull the favorite customer line on everyone? Schmoozer." Ace says, leaning forward to take out his wallet. He ends up forking over the money for enough pills to get him through a couple days, and he leaves the place feeling better. Calmer. In order.
While he's walking back home, the high hits him.
His movements don't slow, but they get more languid, loose. Everything feels fuckin' square, now, feels right.
His mind wanders to the other night, when he sat and talked with Thatch and Marco. Whitebeard's is just a block away … Maybe he can pop in, see who's around?
It was nice, talking to them. Easy, familiar, safe. He'd laughed readily and genuinely, and maybe he wants that again from them.
Ace finds himself there while he's still deciding.
The place isn't terribly busy, but he sees no Marco. That's to be expected. He does see Thatch, though, and Ace takes his seat at the counter.
"Heeeey, sugar. What's up?" Thatch asks him, wiping down the counter.
"I got a hole in my stomach only french fries and a vanilla coke can fill, I think." says Ace, and he grins. That much is true. "How are you?"
"A bit busy, but I'm properly staffed, so I'm not worried. I'll get you that on the house." Thatch says, and he's calling back the order to the line cooks behind them. Ace blinks. He's very kind; Ace has seen him do that a couple times with people he, assumes, must be close with the owner.
"Thanks, Thatch."
"No problem — Oh!" the bell over the door jingles and Thatch is holding a hand up in greeting to the newcomer. "Hey, Pops."
Ace turns to look at Pops, the man who this place is named for.
He really should have just walked past the place, he thinks, once he sees Whitebeard.
He feels like he might very well fall off the stool, but he grips at the counter and it seems like he can't take his eyes off the hulking man. Their eyes meet, and Ace feels his world whirl. Something in his chest hurts, like it did with Marco, like it did with so many of his friends and even his family — from time to time.
The other man doesn't change his facial expression at all, but Ace knows that he's holding one of surprise, and for that he feels like an idiot. He turns back to the counter, staring at his hands.
"You okay?" Thatch asks him.
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine, uh. Feel a bit funny, haven't eaten much."
"Ah, gotcha." concern laces itself through those words, and it doesn't sound as if he's very convinced of 'I'm fine'.
Whitebeard takes his seat next to Ace, and Ace feels, at once, as if he'd rather leave and that he'd like to be near him. Its not a comfortable divide, that split down the middle of him.
"You look like you've seen a ghost, boy." Whitebeard tells him, voice even, but then he laughs a low, grumbly laugh.
He remembers that laugh. He'd heard it so much, he'd elicited it himself, always felt good when he could get the old man to rumble like that —
"I think its 'cause of how big you are, man, you cleared the doorway and everything." Ace snickers; nice save, he tells himself. Whitebeard laughs again, nods, turns to Thatch.
"Been a minute, Pops."
"Its been three days, son."
"You can't take a joke sometimes! I'll get you the usual?"
"Yeah, you do that."
Thatch scurries off to make the food himself, presumably, and so Whitebeard turns again to Ace. Ace feels that divide again — leave / stay. Don't talk to me / laugh again. Who are you / where did you go?
"What's your name?" Whitebeard asks. "I'm Edward, but people call me Pops or Whitebeard around here."
"Ace. People just call me Ace."
"You know my boy?" He nods up to motion to the back of the place, to where Thatch retreated.
"Yeah. I come here a lot." Ace sniffs, rubs at his face, "He's good people."
"Suppose he is. What do you do, son?"
"Student at Windmill. I'm studying film and working at this cookie joint couple blocks down, part time."
"Film, huh."
Whitebeard asks him about his classes, this and that, like he actually cares about this near stranger. As they talk, it gets easier to relax and talk to him. Thatch eventually returns with both of their food, and he leans on the counter to talk to them both.
But it comes time that he has to part, peaking in his high and wanting to bask in the rest of it alone. He says his farewells to both Thatch and Whitebeard, and continues on his merry way down the sidewalk, popping a couple more pills on the way.
The apartment is warm and homey, decorated fully by Sabo; he's the only one in the trio of brothers who has a lick of design sense. He finds his brothers are out, with no notes on the whiteboard giving an indication as to their whereabouts.
That's fine, he thinks; Sabo and Luffy can more than take care of themselves, and he rather likes being alone when he's high, anyway. Sometimes, at least. Its just, for him, a private sort of slow dance on a dimly-lit dance floor.
He zones out and he peaks and, God, there's really nothing better than this.
Sleep washes over him, artificial, and she whispers sweet dreams over his eyes when he's fully under.